‘Blatant lies’ in UK politics unchallenged, says Cambridge Disinformation Summit speaker

This month’s inaugural Cambridge Disinformation Summit is the first event to offer a global interdisciplinary perspective on the disinformation landscape with speakers from fields including finance, journalism, psychology, technology and healthcare.

The two-day event on Juy 27/28 has been convened by Alan Jagolinzer, professor of financial accounting at Cambridge Judge Business School (CJBS). The focus is on “the broad societal damage from disinformation that includes exacerbating excess pandemic deaths, undermining democratic institutions, and fuelling aggressive war or genocidal campaigns”.

One of the speakers at the Cambridge Disinformation Summit is Emma Briant, a research affiliate at CJBS’s Centre for Financial Reporting & Accountability. Dr Briant’s work focuses on disinformation, propaganda and influence operations and what can be done to tackle them while protecting democracy, open government and free expression.

1. You’ve previously talked and written about disinformation in journalism – what are the causes?

I’ve studied this phenomenon extensively in the British media, particularly false and misleading reporting on disability, migration and human rights issues. Market forces create incentives for the press, which is a business, to produce articles that sell and – especially for the right-wing tabloids – what sells is content that confirms their readers’ prejudices and fears. Politicians feed such coverage as populist narratives leveraging such fears to help score votes. My book Bad News for Refugees included interviews with journalists about fabricated stories and showed how false media narratives impacted migrants and their communities.

2. How does disinformation gestate? Is it groupthink?

Communities and group identity reinforcement are key. For those who believe anti-authoritarian conspiracy theories, journalists, officials or scientists often won’t be trusted or respected. Outsider status or other markers of community authenticity or group status instead reinforce trust, something that can be manipulated easily to leverage vaccine misinformation or other rumours in online communities. Those who share political falsehoods may also do so knowingly, because the stories fit an ideological narrative or have emotional resonance within the community. Simply debunking and challenging ‘group think’ isn’t likely to work without reaching their core values.

3. In terms of governance, social media companies play by their own set of rules. Is it too late to rein them in?

I don’t think it’s too late to rein them in – we need to not abandon the goal of ending targeted advertising and assume that surveillance capitalism has gone so far it cannot be challenged.

4. Which national governments rate highest in terms of trustworthiness?

That rather depends – trustworthiness in what? The US is one of the most transparent democracies in terms of its extensive FOI access. I would not trust it to be equitable though.

5. Is disinformation a cause or a symptom of democracy failing?

Lies have always existed, including in politics, but it has become more profitable and easier to lie. Within an engagement-driven digital political communication system, it has become immensely profitable and easy to use behavioural data analytics to increase engagement with false or questionable content through emotions, fear and anxiety. In today’s online world it is also easier to obscure identities and rapidly produce convincing fake content. And when we are fearful we often act before we think.

6. Both major political parties are relying on disinformation to deny or mask the damage Brexit is doing to the UK economy. What’s that all about?

I am disappointed that Labour remain so cautious on Brexit, here they fail to challenge the Conservatives on their most blatant lies. The demographics of Labour’s support has changed since 2016 to overwhelmingly support rejoining the EU and they need to call Brexit what it was, a disaster built on foundations of falsehood.

7. Are the regulatory obligations for data use and misuse okay, or do they need to go further?

Progress here has been disappointing, not least because the Information Commissioner has been seeking to roll back important advances made with the GDPR. We need to actually ban targeted advertising and regulate campaign firms who work with data more closely. There are real problems with enforcement. We also need to extend the right to Freedom of Information to include private companies contracted to government.

Dr Briant is on the ‘Profiteering: the business of disinformation’ panel at King’s College Hall at 8.30am on July 28, details here.